Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture

The New Evangelisation in practice

I’ve just had an article published about the New Evangelisation in the Catholic Church. Here is the opening section about the importance of conviction for those involved in this work:

A quarter of a million people pass through Leicester Square in central London every day. By some kind of miracle, the four Catholic parishes in the area received permission from Westminster City Council to take over the square for a Saturday last summer under the banner ‘Spirit in the City’.

The event involved a stage with non-stop music and talks; a line of stalls promoting various Catholic charities, movements and religious orders; a series of workshops about every aspect of Christian faith; a team of street evangelists greeting people and handing out prayer cards; a makeshift confessional with a rota of priests; and a suitably dignified tent-cum-chapel with the Blessed Sacrament exposed for adoration and personal prayer.

It was the strangest experience to emerge from Burger King and then kneel before the Lord in the centre of Leicester Square – a sanctuary of silence in the madness of the city.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the recently established Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation, has a magnificent desk and a blank piece of paper. He has been charged by Pope Benedict with re-evangelising the West in an age of secularism and moral relativism and talks himself of the West living “in a cultural crisis” (see ‘Taking on the world’, The Tablet, 8 January).

He could do worse than pay a visit to Britain for some inspiration. It’s striking how many evangelisation initiatives have sprung up over the last few years, from small parish projects to national programmes, many of them focused on young people. And while they don’t all fit neatly into one model, there are some common ideas at the heart of them.

Those who are committed to evangelisation have a real love for Christ and for the Church, as many Catholics do. But they also have a conviction that the Christian faith is something too precious to be kept to oneself. The Sion Community is the largest ‘home mission’ organisation in the UK. It’s involved in parish missions, youth ministry, residential training, and in forming others for the task of evangelisation.

I recently led a study day about Christian motivation at their centre in Brentwood. At the end of the morning session someone asked, ‘And how can this help us share the Gospel more effectively with the people we meet?’ They simply wanted to connect my topic with their deepest concern – which was helping others to know Christ. And the way this question instinctively arose helped me to see how focussed the community is on the explicit work of proclaiming and communicating the Gospel.

This approach is in sharp contrast to a reticence still felt by many Catholics about the very idea of evangelisation. I think there are different reasons for this, not all of them negative: a desire to witness unobtrusively through one’s personal example; a respect for the presence of God in people of other faiths or of no faith; a fear of appearing triumphalistic, arrogant or judgemental.

But the reticence can also reflect a subtle relativism that sometimes casts its spell, persuading Catholics that all beliefs are equally true, or that all truths are equally important. Many people aren’t convinced that evangelisation is ‘the primary service which the Church can render to every individual and to all humanity’ (Redemptoris Missio, Pope John Paul). But at the Sion Community, they believe in the importance of moving from ‘witness’ to ‘proclamation’. [The Tablet, 22 Jan 2011, p10]

6 Responses

“But the reticence can also reflect a subtle relativism that sometimes casts its spell, persuading Catholics that all beliefs are equally true, or that all truths are equally important.”

I don’t quite understand, can use explain this paragraph again in different words. Is this a good thing or not. Surely all beliefs are not equally true. Some truths have no equality what so ever. And that surely needs addressing.

I constantly try and break down your paragraphs in relation to understanding them in relation to how I feel.

The uncomfortableness that I feel with Evangelisation is, its so public, and frothy and fun for want of better words. As an individual, who expresses herself perfectly in words, in private, and as a person that has been very drawn to faith through a certain spiritual ‘isolation’ and intense and intimate thinking and longing, the seriousness of further deeper personal study is far more appealing than watering down the intensity and sacredness of what we feel, by practically sharing it in an evangelical and watered down way with lots of others. Instead I feel imparting our deepest knowings in a sacred and intense, holy and true way, for me this would be through unchangeable writings or one to one. There are most definitely different personalities for different methods of sharing God’s promise.

I am sorry, I know this is not my web site about me or my life, but it is so incredibly helpful at present, and a blessing.

The Sirit in the City event sounds like it was wonderful! This is yet another example of the Catholic Church getting to grips with 21st Century life and going out and ‘meeting the people’. It gives a very human face to our Church and lets people who, otherwise, may not darken the doors of a church, see what Catholics actually do and get the opportunity to ask why. Brilliant!

I think it is incredibly important to reach people with faith options, especially when they are young. I had no access or awareness of the Catholic faith, at all as a child, and as a result of this I am now tethered and bound by my faithless mistakes, and for this reason alone I would want everyone to be given choice to choose their way from a young age.

However on the other hand having been denied a formal faith as a child I fervently believe the blessed and intimately personal journey of discovering Christ step by step through chance, seeking, hunger, longing, , yearning, inspiration, and revelation is so awesomely and powerfully charged and so breathtakingly life consuming, so much so that everything else pales into insignificance that I think maybe I would not have wanted it any other way.

Grace is hard earnt this way. But living and breathing the limitless deeps of Love daily is the only pilgrimage worth taking.

That move ‘from witness to proclamation’ can be such a daunting one for many people, especially within a Church where ‘evangelisation’ has often been seen as something that other denominations do and within a broader social context where religion tends to be seen as something that sits awkwardly in the public domain. It may be that those of us in our middle and later years need to learn from the openness of younger Catholics or at least think seriously about how we might convey to others what inspires those qualities and actions that we might think of as our ‘witness’ to our faith. Otherwise those qualities and actions may not be witnessing to the Risen Christ in any clear way. Instead, folk might just see them as witnessing to us as decent people!

“We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24)

How simple the gospel message is! Through his cross, death and resurrection, Jesus has opened up a way for each of us to be set free from sin and enter into the presence of God through our baptism. Jesus is risen, and the door is now wide open for all of us. But as simple and straightforward as this message is, we sometimes need help seeing the open door that’s right in front of us. And that’s where brothers and sisters in Christ come in with initiatives like the prayerchair preaching that simple message that God loves each of us and the Holy Spirit testifies to that with signs wonders and miracles. How awesome is that! So come on church Arise ARISE ARISE! Shabba!

About this blog

Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture - at the arts, science, religion, politics, philosophy; sorting through the jumble; seeing what stands out, what unsettles, what intrigues, what connects, what sheds light. Father Stephen Wang is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Westminster, London. He is currently Senior University Chaplain, based at Newman House Catholic Chaplaincy. [Banner photo with kind permission of Matthew Powell]

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